Snow Edge
Borde de nieve
In the tropics, the so-called perpetual snows disappear. A new landscape emerges. Humans build a monument to the loss and, at the same time, a portal to travel to that ancient ice age. Different audiovisual materials are used to build a heterogeneous idea about the thaw and possible origin of the Páramo landscape.
“Celluloid film is similar to plants but also lagoons. The process of printing an image on light-sensitive material is reminiscent of the photosynthesis process that plants undergo when they capture sunlight. In turn, the surface of a lagoon acts as a mirror, reflecting or ‘projecting’ images.
There is another remarkable link between cinema and nature, specifically with water. A film like Borde de nieve, which uses both analogue film and digital images, is made possible by a generous stream of consciousness, like a rippling river of ideas. Through disjointed fragments, the film moves us through landscapes and generates a pilgrimage experience.
The melting mountain peaks serve as a metaphor; the vanishing ice releases new manifestations of the landscape. The ecosystem underwent various forms of violence; layer after layer of melting exposes human passage and destruction. Social crises thus become visible in the biosphere: rivers and mountains as witnesses of a struggle. The mountain ranges lead us to the past or the future, both as access or escape routes. The film’s central mountain thus provides a geological, spatial, temporal, and symbiotic encounter. Meanwhile, I walk on.” — Valentina Giraldo
This film was chosen by Valentina Giraldo in response to Luisa Mello’s Water and Salt. Giraldo is a film critic and a Berlinale Talents alumna. She was co-director of the Equinoxio Film Festival and writes for several magazines in Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia. Giraldo is a member of the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI and has been a jury member at different film festivals. She focuses on visual and gender studies. She is a weaver, feminist, and tarot reader.
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